Dear Prof. Visser, Dr. Dlali, Mr. Mavela and Mrs. Sijadu, and hello David.
:)
I am so grateful that David has asked you all for your help. :)
Just so you know, the Wikimedia Foundation, is a not-for-profit, charitable
organization that relies on the goodwill of our users, volunteers, and
friends. We have a very specific goal: to develop and maintain our suite of
online, free, open content encyclopedias and other websites in all the
languages of the world which are distributed free of charge to everyone.
This is how we hope to help people improve their lives and change their
world.
We hope to bring Wikipedia to greater prominence in Africa. One of the ways
in which we are attempting to do so is through
VisualEditor<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor>
. VisualEditor <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor> is what David
mentioned: new software that will allow people to edit Wikipedia pages
without having to learn complex computer coding language. It is a
WYSIWYG-style interface and rich text editor that is as intuitive to use as
an email application or word processing program. It will make it so much
simpler for isiXhosa speakers to contribute content to Xhosa
Wikipedia<https://xh.wikipedia.org/>g/>.
And Xhosa Wikipedia desperately needs more contributors. There are only *156
<https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics>*
articles<https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AllPages> in
the entire encyclopedia and the more than 7 million mother tongue speakers
are represented by essentially only
*2*<https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ActiveUsers> active
users. And that is even in the month since Nelson Mandela's death.
The VisualEditor software is ready to go, but at the moment, the
instructions are completely in English. With 285 languages to deploy to, we
cannot hire translators, we must reply on volunteers.
If you know any students who are able to volunteer as translators, the
sooner they can start, the better! (And if you would like to try your hand
at translating, we'd love to have your help, too!) :)
As David mentioned, it is the Wikipedia interface, i.e. the buttons, menus
and instructions, that need translating. Presently 0% of the interface has
been translated into isiXhosa (citation:
here<https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group…);action=translate>),
and deployment is set for just one week from now: 13 January 2014
(citation: here <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Rollouts>).
The good news is, there are only 147 words and phrases to translate! The
most time-consuming thing is waiting for admin approval of a
TranslateWiki<https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:UserLogin&…
account...
I outlined a short to-do list for translators in my Community Portal post
called "Translators
Needed<https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal#Translat…d>".
But the most important things to do right now are:
- Create an account on
TranslateWiki<https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:UserLogin&…
and
await approval.
- Translate the VisualEditor
Interface<https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&…
.
If translators have questions, they can message me on my talk page on
XH.WP<https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:AKoval_(WMF)>
or EN.WP <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:AKoval_(WMF)>, they can
message me on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/anna.koval.737>, or they
can email me at akoval(a)wikimedia.org.
I thank you so all much! :)
Yours sincerely,
Anna
--
*Anna Koval <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:AKoval_(WMF)>*
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
415-839-6885 x 6729
akoval(a)wikimedia.org
On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 8:51 AM, David Richfield <davidrichfield(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Dear Prof. Visser, Dr. Dlali, Mr. Mavela and Mrs
Sijadu,
I am the secretary of Wikimedia South Africa, an organisation that
works within South Africa to make good on the Wikimedia Foundation's
vision of making the sum of all human knowledge available to every
human being.
Recently, I received a request for assistance from Anna Koval at the
Wikimedia Foundation: Wikipedia in isiXhosa is currently a very small
project, and one of the aspects that is hampering its growth, is that
the interface, i.e. the buttons, menus and instructions, are not yet
in isiXhosa. They need help translating it.
If any of you or your students would like to get involved with this
endeavour, please contact me, Anna (copied on this email) or any
member of the Wikimedia South Africa board:
http://wikimedia.org.za/wiki/Board and we will be eager to
collaborate.
Thanks for your kind consideration,
Yours faithfully,
--
David Richfield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Slashme
+491723724440
--
*Anna Koval <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:AKoval_(WMF)>*
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
415-839-6885 x 6729
akoval(a)wikimedia.org